T his summer has been a rather odd one pretty much all over the Midwest, with cooler and wetter conditions that we’re accustomed to come late July and into August. As a result, “summer river conditions” came around in late July and early August this year. Once water temperatures made it into the low 70’s and stayed there for a sustained amount of time, baitfish showed up, crayfish molted and fish fed heavily for a while. Since then it has been a matter of simply finding those that are hungry and presenting ones fly or lure to them correctly.
We have been fishing warm water species such as smallmouth bass and the occasional northern pike, with both fly fishing and light spin tackle equipment. The fly fisher would be best served using a heavier “bass taper” fly line, on their preferred 6 or 7 weight rod to turn over both top water poppers and heavier streamers. It’s nice to have a 10-15’ “loop to loop” sink tip available for switching from top water poppers or waking flies, to subsurface streamers such as crayfish and baitfish patterns. The light spin tackle angler will follow the same top water – subsurface transition when necessary, fishing with a 6-8’ medium to medium- light action rod and a reel spooled with 15-20# braid, that’s tipped with 3-4’ of 6-10# fluorocarbon. Bait is certainly an option for the spin fisher. Having a good understanding of drop shot rigs for fishing crayfish-leeches or similar, slip bobbers for fishing deeper pools with the same baits, as well as light line minnow fishing with small jig heads is important. Bait can be great, but correct rigging and storage for bait options such as crawlers, crayfish, leeches, wigglers, etc., is never an easy task. Sometimes lures and flies do just fine for the time allowed, and body of water one is fishing.
In September we will find many chinook salmon entering their natal rivers on their annual spawning run. Much of my time will be spent fishing around fellow guides on the lower stretches of the Pere Marquette River, just east of Ludington. I will call that home for the better part of a month, before returning to my home water of the Muskegon River to fish for salmon and steelhead up to Christmas. We will see the first of our migratory salmon on the Muskegon River come early to mid-September, depending on conditions in Lake Michigan and dropping water temperatures in the river.
After a very suspect summer of big game fishing in Lake Michigan in 2014, at least we’re SEEING fish show up this summer, although it has not been a banner year for Lake Michigan charter boats for several reasons. A primary one has been cooler than normal water temperatures, which affect the overall aquatic life of the big lake and the baitfish that our salmon, steelhead, lake trout, and lake run brown trout feed on.
Looking forward to a fun fall of 2015! Happy Fishing :)